Menu

• Dictionary
• Hot Shots

Directory

• Sponsors
• Billing Options
• Content Providers
• Web Hosting
• Traffic Counters
• Website Designers
• Resource Sites

Well we're back. 1400 miles of driving in two days over highways that varied from multi-laned to not much more than narrow goat tracks and we even got to seem two of my grandsons and one of my granddaughters. Even without the fun of seeing my descendants it was a good trip although I'm not sure I would want to do it again anytime soon.

One thing we did notice on the trip south was how things have changed on the roads in the next state. There are speed cameras everywhere along the highway now and every one of them has at least three warning signs telling drivers that they're getting closer to a 24 hour speed camera.

Then there are signs every couple of miles along the sides of the highways telling you to check your speed, other signs warn of the cost to you if you're caught speeding. Even more signs and warnings are painted on the road surface and occasionally you'll come to points where signs tell you what speed you're actually driving at and if you're going to fast they make it plain that you have to slow down.

Frankly Steve and I found it rather harrowing to be driving through all those signs and warnings and in the end whoever wasn't driving was continually checking the speedo to see if the car was traveling too fast.

Up here in Queensland the roads are about the same but there are only three speed cameras in the whole of the state and there's nothing like that forest of warning signs lining the highways here and driving can be a whole lot more fun ... but there is a catch.

Easter is one of the worst times of the year for road related deaths here in Australia. Our road toll at this time of year is usually quite bad and this Easter looks like being no different. There have been multiple deaths in just about every state including Queensland but so far there have been no fatalities in that southern state we spent the last few days driving through all those signs.

In fact during the trip across the border we only saw five or six cars that were speeding in the whole trip but back here in Queensland there were plenty of cars speeding and that just goes to show one thing. If you want people to do something ... in this case slow down and stick to the road rules ... you have to keep on telling them over and over again. And then you need to tell them some more in lots of different ways.

Right there is a lesson for us. We want people to buy the products we're selling so we have to tell them to do it ... again and again and again ... and we have keep on telling them over and over again in lots of different ways. Not only do we have to tell them but we have to make it easy for them to do what we want them to do.

Remember those points that I mentioned where you were shown what speed you were doing? Well we need to incorporate that principle into our advertising too. We also need to persuade people to buy what we're selling by telling them what the benefits are if they buy.

Of course we're going to run into problems trying to incorporate all that advertising into our sites because those who control the traffic also want to control how much advertising we show our surfers ... so we need to think of new and innovative ways to get that advertising in front of our surfers. It's no use sitting back and complaining that surfers aren't clicking on our ads; we need to make them want to click on our ads.

So that's a challenge for you and it's not one for which there is any easy answer but if you want to make sales then it's a challenge that you really do have to face up to and you need to face up to soon because it's only going to get harder to make sales as the economy of so many countries starts to contract.

If you really don't have any idea on where or how to start changing your advertising to make it more appealing then perhaps have a look around the business section of your local bookstore. You'll find plenty of good books on marketing and, if you want to start somewhere, think about starting with books by the Eisenberg brothers and start getting into the psychology of marketing because that's what will help you make the changes to your marketing that need to be made.

Some people may think that adult marketing is entering a much tougher period and perhaps it is but I believe that what we're actually beginning to see is adult marketing beginning to mature and if you can mature with it then you've got nothing to worry about even though others may find that the going gets much harder.